This invention relates to improved body supports with medical and aerospace applications. Medically, these support configurations will help protect against and treat bed sores. These supports will also help reduce the discomfort associated with prolonged immobile situations and also will immobilize injured patients and thus prevent patients from further injuring themselves. In the aerospace field these support configurations will protect pilots against the high acceleration and vibration forces found in high performance aerospace vehicles.
Medical Field: Bed sores are caused primarily by pressure. Other causative factors include moisture build up and adverse skin temperature gradients. When conventional supports such as chairs, wheelchairs and beds are used, boney prominences are exposed to the highest degree of pressure and they are most susceptible to skin breakdown.
Many have attempted to redistribute pressure evenly so as to reduce the excessive pressure under boney prominences. These devices include cushion-like pads that are foam, gel, water, air or sand filled. Other devices alternate pressure such as an alternating pressure pad or beds which tilt the patient from side to side.
Many devices mentioned above, have surfaces that lack sufficient porosity, which then cause an excessive build-up of moisture against the skin. Foam and air-filled cushions lack air circulation and possess high insulating properties, both of which lead to an excessive rise in skin temperature. On the other hand, water-filled beds and cushions conduct heat away from the skin, thereby adversely reducing skin temperature. Air, water, gel and sand filled devices may leak once punctured and thus loose their effectiveness and become hazardous. Another problem associated with the above supports includes the inability to provide a safe, practical and stable support that prevents excessive patient movement while on the support. A still further problem with these supports is that they do not provide a stable support surface while transferring onto or off of these supports.
Aerospace Field: Aerospace pilots are exposed to the stress of high acceleration, impact acceleration and vibration forces. These stresses overcome the body's elastic tissue's ability to keep the body from deforming under the increased hydro-static pressure and increased weight. Rigid contoured couches, hard shell suits, water tanks, anti-"G" suits and Bowring et al (U.S. Pat. No. 3,011,826) net crew seat have been developed to better protect pilots. Bowring's support has been found to be effective in helping pilots withstand high acceleration forces. However, Bowring's support has a serious rebound problem. This rebound effect occurs because the pilot sinks in the seat during acceleration and when the acceleration stops the pilot is thrown out or rebounds out of the seat due to the recovery of the yieldable resilient support fabric. A further disadvantage is that the support is not multi-directional, it only provides support from front to back (eye balls in). Bowring's support does not protect against side to side movement, nor does it protect against back to front movement (eye balls out). A still further disadvantage is that the depth of the pilot in the seat changes significantly as the acceleration forces change.
Field of Sling Supports: Sling supports like Sam's seat device U.S. Pat. No. 2,600,944, Dionne's torso support U.S. Pat. No. 3,949,435, Bowring's net crew seat, and Dubbink's bathing chair U.S. Pat. No. 4,295,683 do not have an individually fitted frame and supporting fabric for different length and width bodies and thus physiologically critical protection against pressure is not achieved. Moreover Bowring's and Dubbink's devices are shallow supports and do not redistribute support pressure to a significant portion of the sides of the body portions. A further disadvantage of all these sling supports is that a person would have to enter these supports vertically, like in a normal seat or bed. Thus transferring into or out of these supports would be very difficult for healthy people and would be impossible and potentially injurious to most patients. A still further disadvantage is that a person's legs are either seriously squeezed together as in Dionne's support, or kept physiologically too close together thus causing contraction of the patient's legs as in Sam's device, or as in Bowring's net crew seat keeping the legs too close together in an non-optimal position.